I’m sure most fans outside of Los Angeles will be surprised to hear that the Kings host an annual event for their fans called Hockey Fest. It coincides with the opening of rookie camp and all Kings fans can attend for a small fee. Season ticket holders get a discount.

For those wondering about what the Kings’ “Hockey Fest” will look like this season, here’s a rundown of exactly how the day is scheduled to go. All events will take place at the Toyota Sports Center in El Segundo. Tickets are available for $20 (or $15 for season-ticket holders).

The fact that the Ilya Kovalchuk impasse will drag out at least another day shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. It would have been naive (read: I was naive) to believe reports that an answer would come from the League today.

This will-he-or-won’t-he question has lingered since the superstar left winger was traded to New Jersey in February. It stayed unanswered through weeks of courtship from the Kings and Devils in July and it could remain that way—God, forbid—if this contract is dismissed once again by the suits on Sixth Avenue.

Somehow, it doesn’t seem like that will be the case this time.

If Nick Kypreos was right on Monday, and this new deal really is two years shorter and more reasonably spread out in terms of payout, this might finally all be over.

I heard a caller on the radio the other day talk about the effect the Phil Kessel trade has had on the Toronto Maple Leafs. Most people think that the trade was a disaster for the Leafs, but I was a proponent of the trade when it first happened. However, I did not think Brian Burke needed to give up 2 first round picks to get Kessel because he had the threat of the offer sheet and only needed to give up a first, second, and third round pick if he were to go that route (I know Burke lashed out at Kevin Lowe for the Dustin Penner offer sheet, but the biggest issue he had with Lowe was that he didn’t approach him first about a deal; he felt blind sided). That being said, I do not want to sit here and discuss how good or bad that deal was. Back to the caller, he made what I thought to be a great point, he essentially said that if Burke did not make the Kessel trade, some of the other deals he made later in the year probably would not have happened since the Leafs would have most likely been tanking the season and playing for Taylor Hall or Tyler Seguin. So to judge Burke solely on the Kessel trade would not be fair. You need to look at the effect of that trade on the other moves he has made and I tend to agree with him. Thus, the Leafs most likely would not have made the Phaneuf or Giguere trades, which essentially brought the Leafs their young captain and also ridded them of bad contracts (Blake, and I would argue Stajan, and White as well).

1. That all team members are required to bunk in dorms that are built into each
arena, prior to a game the next day. Ideally, this allows players to focus on the task at hand, rather than any domestic or social outlet. This isn’t quite as stringent as the Soviet era, where Central Red Army players were required to live and train together in a secluded facility for eleven months of the year.

2. That legendary National Team Coach; Viktor Tikhonov started his career as a defenceman for the Air Force team. His coach; Vasily Stalin; son of Joseph Stalin.

3. That many Soviet-era teams were made up of players from the army, KGB and trade unions. Moscow Dynamo was comprised of KGB agents, Spartak was made of of trade union members and Central Red Army was comprised of…you guessed it…army members.

4. That the emergence and strength of the KHL is partly due to the fledgling oil
and steel industries in Russia. Many oil and steel tycoons invest in or own a KHL franchise.

I’m going to avoid calling this a “season preview” as I think I share the belief of most Kings fans that Dean Lombardi will make at least one more move this offseason that will alter the starting lineup. Instead I’ll take a look at the current team to try to identify what I believe are the strengths and weaknesses.

Forwards:

Top 6: Right now the top 6 forwards of the Kings appears to be Dustin Brown, Anze Kopitar, Ryan Smyth, Wayne Simmonds, Jarret Stoll, and Justin Williams. Micheal Handzus and newly signed Alexei Ponikarovsky could also push for playing time on the top 2 lines, depending on their production. Last year the Kings were tied for 9th in 5 on 5 goal scoring ratio at 1.07, tied with Pittsburgh. They were 7th in the league on the power play scoring the 5th most PP goals in the league with 64.

There are a lot of very good reasons to peg the Ottawa Senators at 10th in the East this year. Can the geritocracy of Alfredsson, Gonchar, and Kovalev be dominant over the full course of an 82-game schedule? Is Peter Regin for real? Have Michalek and Kovalev’s injuries fully healed? Will anyone on Ottawa’s defense corps hit anything this year?

Does Ottawa need to buy Pascal Leclaire a Popemobile to ensure his safety off-ice?

Also casting a long shadow over Ottawa’s chances at making the playoffs is the improvement of other teams in the East. While I may have my doubts about the various alchemies being employed in the Southeast Division and New Jersey, I think it is fair to say that the East is now beginning to resemble the West in that the distance between the eighth seed and those on the outside looking in will be much closer than at any time in recent memory.

Two seasons ago I was watching the Minnesota Wild play the Calgary Flames when Brent Burns was dubbed by Jim Hughson as a rising defensive star who was in the same class as Dion Phaneuf and Mike Green. He was a sure thing to play on Team Canada in the upcoming Olympics and had just signed a long-term contract.

Today I ask myself what went wrong. Injuries, to start with. In the last three seasons Brent’s games played have gone like this: 82, 59, 47. Young players, especially those playing on the blueline, need playing time to develop and Burns hasn’t played enough to do that.

Secondly, Coach Lemaire screwed with his head by playing him at wing whenever Jacques felt like it. The Wild, as always, lacked a scoring punch and Lemaire felt inclined to play the gifted defenseman at wing to see if it would ignite the team. All it did was take Burns out of his natural position and forced him to play in a spot where he didn’t succeed.

And finally, most of us are coming to the realization that Burns just isn’t going to be a great player. He’s certainly got the tools, but sometimes I question his makeup. Does he have the grit to make a #1 defenseman? It looked like he did in the playoffs against Corey Perry and the Ducks a few years ago, but I haven’t seen that since.

Burns is a good player, don’t get me wrong, it’s just that I don’t believe he’s going to be a great one, and unfortunately that’s not what the Wild want to hear.

So what’s going on in the world of minor league hockey? Anyone? No one knows? I’ll never quite understand that. I get that the AHL lacks the big names that the NHL has, but the game is the same. In some ways I think it’s better, though in the end I do care about the Stanley Cup a whole heck of a lot more than I do the Calder Cup.

Every year around this time I glance at the rosters of junior hockey and minor league hockey teams. I do this because I know that someday, one of them might be on my favorite team. Some of them could end up with their names on the Stanley Cup or in a race for the league scoring title. They’re unknown to me now, but maybe not in a few years.

Howard, Crosby, Doughty… All three are well known around the league now, but look back 5 or 6 years and they were pretty much unknown. They’re rich and famous today, but they got their careers started by riding buses and washing off in a shower with no hot water.

So this year, in the middle of all the stress, anxiety and joy of this years NHL season, don’t forget your local minor league team. You might catch a glimpse of future (or even past) greatness. And when you see one of those guys screw up and you think, “Wow, he sucks.”, don’t forget that we all gotta start somewhere.

After enduring a devastating 5-3 comeback loss to the Vancouver Canucks on January 30th last season, Brian Burke took action by accentuating the Leafs lack of accountability within the organization. Burke wowed the hockey world by orchestrating separate trades to acquire former Calder and Norris Trophy nominee Dion Phaneuf and former Conn Smythe winner and Stanley Cup Champion Jean-Sebastien Giguere. Burke also managed to unload the ugly contracts of Vesa Toskala and Jason Blake in exchange for former Conn Smythe winner and Stanley Cup Champion Jean-Sebastien Giguere. Most of the talk during the fallout of the trade were focused around the acquisition of Phaneuf and the unloading of Toskala and Blake, but the addition of Giguere was perhaps the largest gain to further the betterment of the franchise. He has only been with the Leafs for a few short months, but his impact to the Maple Leafs organization has paid immediate dividends.

Giguere is coming off a disappointing season in which he began as the backup in Anaheim behind Jonas Hiller. He only began to regain his status as a bonifide starting goaltender after being reunited with Brian Burke and godly goaltending coach Francois Allaire in Toronto. Giguere posted only 4 wins, along with a bloated 3.14 goals against average and 0.900 save percentage in 20 games with the Ducks. His numbers drastically improved upon arriving in Toronto, where he managed back-to-back shutout in his first two starts with the Leafs. His 6 wins in 15 games with the blue and white wasn’t overly impressive, but showed that he is still capable of carrying a team.